


Love, or something like it

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, More tags as I go, and I'm a sinner, i love Darth Maul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 09:24:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12273549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Things go askew on Naboo! After facing off with Jedi knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn, Darth Maul is shamed—forced to retreat, lest he lose his head. He runs off into the forests surrounding Theed to get his bearings. His master will not be pleased by this defeat... he should have died, it would have been easier that way.But now what will he do?A fighter skims the trees overhead as it hurtles toward the ground and he knows it is a sign. He will take the ship and leave this place, leave the Sith and return home, where he is sure his mother awaits him...





	Love, or something like it

**Author's Note:**

> Idk what inspired this, but whatever it's fun. Expect infrequent updates bc I'm temperamental with my writing and am highly prone to just dropping things :P

 

# Chapter One

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     She woke slowly at first and then all at once with a sudden gasp. Her mouth was dry and her head pulsed. The acrid smell of fuel and smoke mixed into a potent cocktail around her and brought tears to her eyes. Something hefty and sharp pressed into her leg and brought breath-taking pangs like tidal movements the longer it remained. Jysell clenched her teeth and clutched at her thigh, the pain quickly evolving into white hot agony. Her palms soon became wet with her own blood.

  
     "Help..." she croaked, "please... help me."  
Silence heavier than the wreck encasing her weighed down like the densest gravity and a sob racked through her.

  
     "Somebody help me...!" Jysell cried, but still no response came. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip to keep herself from screaming. But it was only in that moment of pure helplessness that she remembered where she came from, where she was. And who she was, at her core, beneath layers of falsehoods. Her face hardened. Red stained hands swept to the closest durasteel barrier and trembled there. She took a filling breath, and reached her will out, the hulking piece lifting away and floating to the side. The muddled puzzle of broken ship was rearranged in the air around her, until a clear path of exit made itself known, and then she strenuously crawled out.

     Every time her forearms carted through leaf litter and her body rocked she winced, but Jysell was determined. Behind her, her A-wing was sprawled in a chaotic, fuming mess. Images of nose-diving into Naboo's atmosphere flitted behind her eyes. There would be no repairing it. Not without teams of flight technicians, anyway. She dared to hope that the hypertransceiver still worked, but it was a long shot considering the extensive damage.

  
     Carefully, Jysell propped herself up against a rotting log and assessed her wounded leg. It oozed hot blood which smattered her beige capris, but it was salvageable. After cleaning out the foreign bodies she let herself relax and forget the pain. Sink into mediation and deep into the trenches of her mind. Her palm hovered just above the gash, reaching out... and then inside, she touched the force, told it to pull muscle back together, mend flesh, and finally knit skin. A gentle glowing illuminated from beneath as she opened her eyes again. She blew out the breath she had been holding and gazed up at the green canopy overhead.

     The next inhale brought with it an unexpected lurch of alarm through the force, sharp and sudden like the swing of a blade. She felt the skin on her neck caper goose flesh and swung her head around at dizzying speed to see a dark looming figure melting from the tree line.

  
     " **Mor'orn Jai.** " The being sneered at her, revealing stark white teeth behind red and black lips. He had a slate-metal staff held in the vice grip of his black leather glove, and rolled his thumb over what she recognised as an ignition stud when her eyes locked to it. She felt more than saw the attention he doused her in and shuddered in response, to which he rumbled deep in the back of his throat, " **Nimitawa ktelo."**

     Jysell barely held her own as he stalked toward her and stared down his tattooed nose. Glowing eyes searched through to her very soul. She tried to stare back, but it was she who blinked.

    "Who are you?" He suddenly said in the instant she did, an almost gentle tone catching her unawares.

  
     She tried to stand but ended up on her backside once more. "No one to you." She bit out proudly, the tone at odds with her weakened state.

  
     The being knelt down by the toes of her boots and planted the staff between his hand and the leaf litter. "I disagree."

  
     "Who are _you_?"

  
     A curious expression crossed his balanced features before he answered honestly, "Call me... _Maul_."

  
     The name held weight to it. She heard phantom strangers cry it around her, heard them snarl it. Whisper it.

  
     "And now you."

  
     She blinked at him, returning from the borrowed fragments of vicarious memory. This was no Jedi—that much was clear, and yet he carried the weapon of one. It was an unconventional thing, true, but it was no less a lightsaber. Her instincts told her that this man was her enemy, but the feelings combated something... more. A slow but steady pull, like a tractorbeam, in which she was the fighter and he the siren mothership. It was not quite compulsion that urged her to speak, but it may as well have been.

  
     "Jysell."

  
     " _Jysell..._ " he echoed, and then beset her with such intense scrutiny that her lips parted. " **Mita'wa**."

  
     "I-I only speak basic." She mumbled as she looked down, if only to escape the stare.

  
     "Then allow me to translate." He spoke gravelly now—something that did dangerous and unexpected things to her. He leaned closer and brought his gloved touch to her temple. Immediately the world around her began to blot away, but she still heard him growl: " _Mine_." before it all went black.

 

 

 

  


End file.
